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Newly Diagnosed and Still Struggling :(

F

flo_oni

Member
Messages
8
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi, all.

I was diagnosed with Type 2 February of 2020. I was immediately put on 1g of metformin 1x daily.

With diet and exercise, I was able to get my weight down from 89kg to 62.7 kg. My last A1C was 5.6 and my FBS was 89, both from hospital.

At home, I check my FBS and 2-hour post prandial every now and then. I usually have very good numbers, even when I add a slice of cake at lunch.

I do break diet occasionally by eating quite a bit of sweet stuff. Just this morning, I had 5 pieces of cookies *sniff* for my 9am snack. I checked my 2-hour postprandial and it was 191. Two hours later again, I checked and it went down to 134. But it took 4 hours to get down to that. *sniff*

Anyway, my question is, is it ok to fall off the wagon every now and then like this?

Would be grateful for any updates.

TYIA!!!
 
Hello @flo_oni, and welcome,

I've been low carbing within a few dietary labels for little over 4 years now. And guess what? Everyone falls off the wagon at some point. Accidentally or on purpose, and this time of year, it's often even planned. Is it good for you? Well, not for your blood sugars. But some might need to let go that tight grip on the reigns sometimes. Not too often, mind you, as that'd be a slippery slope. But if you can keep it at every once in a while (not weekly massive spikes, like someone else on here was hoping, for instance), well... I won't tell, if you don't.

Seriously though, if you can stick with one-offs... Just try and go for one cookie rather than 5. You might be able to have one more often if you can curb your enthusiasm a little. (I'm having a praline right after dinner with my coffee for instance. Just the one, from a high quality, delicious brand, and I get away with it, blood sugar wise.)

Besides.... If you're asking whether you should get to guilt-tripping, the answer is always "No". Guilt can lead to comfort eating or giving up, and what good does it do anybody then? Just shrug it off, get back on the wagon as soon as you can, and make sure the indiscretion was worth it, and thoroughly enjoyed. (And if you still feel like you need to "pay" for a few cookies, just go for a brisk walk to get your blood sugars down, rather than beating yourself up. Much more effective!)

Keep up the good work.
Jo
 
@JoKalsbeek Thank you for your kind words.

I actually have a super low carb diet. Just veggies, fruit, and meat. I do eat a slice of cake after lunch a few times a week, but my 2-hour post prandial is below 130 mg/dl even with cake.

It’s the one-off snacks that shoot up to about 191.
By the way, what is usually considered a massive spike?
 
Hi again, @flo_oni ,

I'm going to ask a bunch of questions, and that's NOT to doubt you in any way, but to make sure we're on the same page. I and others here can give some advice, but if we don't have specifics, we're just doing stabs in the dark, and those don't help you. Can you be more specific about what you eat and drink in a day? What do you consider super low carb? I'm at 5 to 10 grams a day, sometimes under. (Though my diet is rather extreme. Didn't need to go that low for the diabetes, but it helped other issues of mine to do that.). Thing is, veggies can rather run the gamut. Leafy greens, above ground can be very low carb indeed. Whereas pulses and underground veggies are higher in carbs. (Some can tolerate pulses. I happen to not be among them). And fruit, well... Berries are the lowest carb fruits there are, anything else is usually quite a bit higher. When you say "fruit", but it turns out to be pineapple, which is about the highest sugar content fruit out there, it wouldn't be doing you much good. If it's a hand full of strawberries with cream however, that'd be excellent. So could you give us an average day of food and drink, and what your global carb target is?

If you test before a meal and 2 hours after, you're looking for a rise of no more than 37 mg/dl. But I have to say, with 130 post postprandial, you're doing pretty good already. What constitutes a massive spike? Well, me personally, I don't like going over those 37mg/dl's. Anything that pushes you over into hyperglycemia is no good. (Someone mentioned 250 or thereabouts recently, or was it 300? That'd have me in a right state. I start feeling ill at 130 or so though, if I'm calculating that right from mmol/l to mg/dl, as I'm used to lower blood sugars.)

All in all, the more ridiculously specific you get, the better we can tailor advice. Hope the above helped some anyway though!
Jo
 
Hi and welcome. We all have spikes and occasionally fall off the wagon and eat too many carbs. How about not bringing cookies into the house? I assume you are USA-based but we also avoid bringing UK biscuits into the house to avoid temptation! Keep doing what you are doing with a low-carb diet and you should be fine
 
@JoKalsbeek I’d love to share my diet with you and would really appreciate feedback.

Aside from my scheduled 2x daily green tea, I only drink water, around 8 glasses throughout the day.

Here’s my daily schedule:

BREAKFAST (5 AM)
1/4 cup of white kimchi (cabbage)
1/4 cup of radish kimchi
1/4 cup of fish cake
5 pcs perilla leaves
5 pcs of lettuce leaves
1/8 slice of apple
1/8 slice of pear
5 pcs of grapes
2 eggs, scrambled
1/2 cup of fried chicken breast or thigh

EXERCISE
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
6:45-7:30 Light jog (4km)
7:30-8:00 Dance/stretching

MORNING SNACK (9 AM)
Green tea

LUNCH (12 NN)
1/4 cup of white kimchi (cabbage)
1/4 cup of radish kimchi
1/4 cup of fish cake
5 pcs perilla leaves
5 pcs of lettuce leaves
1/8 slice of apple
1/8 slice of pear
5 pcs of grapes
2 eggs, scrambled
100 grams of fish or pork, fried or baked
** Occasional slice of cake

AFTERNOON SNACK (3 PM)
Green tea

@Daibell I’m actually from Asia, and more used to American English so I have to research some of the terms you guys use here.
 


There's a few possible culprits here, though I have to admit to having to google some things. The fish cakes are high in carbs due to the flour used to make them. (And from what I understand at a glance, they're not made of fatty fish, which would be preferable for a T2, but isn't suitable for the recipe). Grapes, pear and apple aren't ideal either. With the kimchi, it entirely depends on what is used aside from the main ingredient, and that seems to vary per region/family, if I got that correctly, but over all that seems alright. Water and green tea are excellent. Cake, not so much. Also, I don't know if your fried options are coated in batter? The flour would raise blood glucose there too. All in all there's still room for improvement, should you want to tweak your diet. But I know too little about asian foods to have viable alternatives for you.
 
Hi @flo_oni, well it seems to me that your general days diet is low carb, an eighth of an apple and a quarter cup of fishcake, etc? I don't know the exact carbs in that but I'm sure it won't amount to much although as Jo says, it all adds up over a day but I still reckon you are well under 130 carbs a day. The spikes will come when you have a slice of cake or your 5 cookies though, if I were to have those I would need a unit or two of insulin because that type of carb will spike me quickly. As for your original question, I think the consensus is that no, the occasional high carb item probably won't but too many of them or too frequently will likely add to the overall problem of being carb intolerant. x
 
@JoKalsbeek and @KK123 I may need to rethink my fish cake. There are some carbs in the recipe. There is some flour in my fried chicken breast or thigh fillet. But overall, on the above diet, I keep my 2-hour postprandial below 130 mg/dl. To be specific, if I don’t eat cake after lunch, I’m below 110 mg/dl. With the slice of cake, I’m below 130 mg/dl. And every morning when I wake up, I’m usually in the 80s (mg/dl) range for my FBS.

Really, it’s that morning snack of cookies with the tea that get me that spike of around 190.

Anyway, given my above numbers, should I still consider tweaking my diet, assuming I won’t eat those cookie snacks anymore?

By the way, I neglected to mention that I don’t eat dinner at all. I still drink water up to before I go to bed, but my last intake aside from water would be the 3 PM green tea.

Any thoughts on that skipped meal? It’s this “intermittent diet” thing that I’m also on, which keeps my eating time to within 5 AM to 3 PM only.
 
Intermittent fasting is fine. It's that I'm being a glutton for Christmas, but usually I have one or two meals myself, and many others here practice IF as well. As for your current numbers, they really are quite excellent, save for the cookies. 190 really is a bit over-the-top. Otherwise, you're doing very, very well. Mind you, if you google keto cookies, and keto fat bombs, you are likely to find excellent alternatives for something to go with your tea, if you don't mind a little baking. (They usually are fine to freeze, so make a big batch for a month, if you don't want to bake often.).
 
Oh, wow. Thanks so much, @JoKalsbeek!

I know that the weight loss should’ve been validation enough, but until I hear it from people who are actually going through the same thing, I’ll just keep doubting.

I’m really grateful for your tips and encouragement, and now I look forward to doing some keto baking projects.

By the way... Happy Holidays, all!
 
Hello and welcome,

Well you have already got great advice and generally your numbers seem good. If you need treats (and I do) then I suggest look for some that are really low carb. I have diet jelly but not everyone likes those. I also sometimes have a teaspoon of peanut butter either on its own or with some cream (I actually know how that sounds but trust me is can be nice and filling and feel like a treat). I also sometimes have keto custard which is also low carb. I guess what I'm suggesting is exactly what @JoKalsbeek suggested- find treats that won't be too high carb.

I find- for me- if I keep very low carb then the physical cravings are less- not always the mental cravings but I am starting to feel like that will be possible after more than 12 months very low carbing. I also am usually under 10 grams a day but have gone a bit over that a couple of times over Christmas -still less than 20 grams.

If what you are doing is working for you then you really only need a little tweak to the treats and those spikes will be a distant memory.
 

omg, I can't see how anyone could surive on that diet (and yes I realise you are actually probably eating the correct amounts), but me I would be starving hungary if
I had that just for breakfast !!!
 
@VashtiB Those keto snacks really sound good. I should really get to looking for those things. Thanks!

@aard It was very hard in the beginning to limit my intake to this point, but I was too scared of my T2 and felt the great need to modify my diet.

More info on my profile is I’m 5’4” and 38 years old. I do feel awful that I got T2 so young. We have a family history of diabetes, and when I got pregnant in 2017, I got tested early on for GDM and I had it. I got started on a controlled diabetic diet early on in my pregnancy, but was also on complete bed rest for threatened miscarriage. The bed rest and hormones didn’t help manage my blood sugar levels, so by my 7th month, I had to go on insulin. On my 36th week, I was scheduled for induced labor because despite the insulin, my sugar was still all over the place.

After giving birth (which eventually happened after 16 hours of labor and an eventual emergency C-section), my numbers actually normalized, but I wasn’t able to really monitor in the intervening years until my diagnosis early this year.

Anyway, lesson here is: genetics and lifestyle really do play a bug role. I regret not having myself monitored after I gave birth. The doctors already told me I was high risk of actually getting T2.

But here we are and although struggling, I am making an effort.

And so very happy to have found you guys.
 
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You are doing great, but if you do want to take some time to tweak a little.... Your numbers are good, no doubt about that, but Aard did make an excellent point: should you be hungry all the time, find other things to eat. Up the fats, cut out the carbs (like all the flour), and you should be able to eat more and still get the same results, both in weight and in blood sugars. I don't really do measurements in cups, so while I've been busy checking my little conversion chart for your blood sugars, I should've checked the food amounts as well. My apologies. If you're not hungry, there's less chance you'll go overboard with cookies.
 
@JoKalsbeek Lol. Converting our units is such a pain. Thanks for making the effort.

Yes, I’ll do more research on adding more fat and taking out the flour. Looks like I’ll be doing a bit more tweaking on my diet. I’ll get right to it! Many many thanks!
 
I just wanted to say- I also had gestational diabetes. My first child was also an emergency Caesar after an 18 hour labour- just as well babies start off really cute. Mine are all grown now though.

You have done so well already I suspect the tweaking won't be that hard. I think it is really important to find something that you can sustain. Like you my fear was my great motivator but also restricting the carbs helped reduce the cravings so that was a win.

It is such a great thing that people from all over the world can help and support each other!
 
If it’s any consolation, I’m pre, 22 BMI and I’ve passed oral glucose test (although I’m at the stage where I now doubt my doctor administered it correctly). I just had one of my kids sweets, estimated 10g of almost total fructose. I’m now at 160/8.8 1.5 hrs later.

I think refined carbs like cookies and candy are just over for me, and for you too.

Frustrating but you’re not alone! I am hoping at some stage I’ll full move to the fifth stage of grief - acceptance.
 
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